I was lucky enough to be able to attend Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity in Washington D.C. last weekend, and I took the opportunity to talk to people with signs pertaining to religion what their signs meant to them.
The Rally itself commented on the problems of religious dogma through the character of Father Guido Sarducci, who named off religions and asked God to indicate which is the correct faith by sending some sort of sign. Like the entire Rally, this was a great example of making an important point through comedy; but I have to admit, I felt a twinge of being left out – nonbelievers were not even mentioned.
There is still big tension in this country over the issue of abortion, and many politicians use the issue to polarize voters. There is not so much, however, a debate on the issue; most people seem pretty set in their ways about this issue. Let me turn, instead, to another issue of appropriateness when disagreeing. The Westboro Baptist Church, for example, protests funerals of soldiers holding signs saying ‘God Hates Fags’, and I would submit that this is an inappropriate means of disagreement. Likewise, many religious people hold signs in front of ‘abortion clinics’ to disagree with abortion. Except, the thing is, it would be incorrect to even call the places these people protest against ‘abortion clinics’. Below is a graph from the Planned Parenthood 2008 report depicting the total services they offer to people who come to them:
Secondly, I would direct you to a cell phone video and article that have been generating some buzz lately. Alternet.org posted this article of a husband who confronted protesters, holding a Jesus sign of course, about how they treated his wife who was getting an abortion for a baby that was guaranteed to die at birth. You can see one of his cell phone videos here:
Even if you disagree with a woman’s right to choose, or you are ‘pro-life’, this method of disagreement needs to stop. This does nothing but harass people who are looking after their own health and getting help. These protesters yell at anyone — the woman who is about to abort a still-born baby, the man who was just cheated on by his wife who is checking for an STD, and the woman who found a lump in her breast. These protesters might seem like an easy target to point a finger at and condemn, but society does not do enough to shun such behavior. Religious organizations, in their typical dogmatic way, prefer black and white and fail to see the real picture. This reminds me of a previous story we covered where a nun at a hospital authorized an abortion to save the life of a mother and the church still excommunicated her (Nun demoted for participating in a life saving abortion, Responses to excommunicated nun story). One can only hope that there is a greater movement towards reason and sanity in this country — if only I were more optimistic about Jon Stewart’s upcoming rally.
